133036: Is faith in the heart sufficient for a person to be a Muslim?

Is faith in the heart sufficient for a person to be a Muslim, without praying, fasting or paying zakaah?.

Praise be to Allaah.

Faith in the heart is not
sufficient without prayer etc. Rather it is obligatory to believe in one’s
heart that Allah is One, with no partner or associate, and that He is one’s
Lord and Creator, and to devote worship to Him alone, may He be glorified
and exalted. And it is obligatory to believe in the Messenger Muhammad
(blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and that he is truly the
Messenger of Allah to all of the two races (mankind and the jinn). All of
this is essential, for it is the foundation of the faith. It is also
obligatory for the accountable individual to believe in everything that
Allah and His Messenger have told us about Paradise and Hell, the Siraat
(bridge over Hell), the Balance and other things referred to in the Holy
Qur’aan and saheeh Sunnah. In addition to that, it is essential to utter the
declaration of faith (shahaadah), testifying that there is no God but Allah
and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and it is essential to pray and
to do all the other things enjoined in Islam. If the individual prays, then
he has done what he is obliged to do, but if he does not pray then he has
committed an act of kufr (disbelief), because not praying is kufr.

With regard to zakaah,
fasting, Hajj and all the other obligatory matters, if he believes that they
are obligatory but he is too lazy to do them, then he is not a kaafir
because of that; rather he is disobedient or sinning, and his faith is weak
and lacking, because faith may increase and decrease. Faith increases when
one does acts of worship and righteous deeds, and it decreases when one
commits acts of disobedience and sin, according to Ahl as-Sunnah
wa’l-Jamaa‘ah.

With regard to prayer in
particular, not praying is kufr according to many scholars, even if one does
not deny that it is obligatory. This is the more correct of the two
scholarly opinions. This is in contrast to other acts of worship such as
zakaah, fasting, Hajj and so on. If he does not do them, that is not major
kufr according to the correct opinion, but it detracts from and weakens
faith, and it is a serious major sin. Not giving zakaah is a serious major
sin; not fasting is a serious major sin; not performing Hajj when one is
able to do so is a serious major sin – but it is not major kufr if one
believes that zakaah is a duty, fasting is a duty, Hajj is a duty for the
one who is able to do it. So long as one does not deny that these duties are
obligatory, but he is negligent concerning them, then he is not a kaafir
according to the correct opinion.

With regard to prayer, if he
does not do it, then according to the more correct scholarly opinion he is a
kaafir in the sense of major kufr –Allah forbid – even if he does not deny
that it is obligatory, as stated above. That is because the Prophet
(blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Between a man and shirk
and kufr there stands his giving up prayer.” Narrated by Muslim in his
Saheeh. And he (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The
covenant that differentiates between us and them is prayer; whoever does not
pray is a kaafir.” Narrated by Imam Ahmad and the authors of the four
Sunans with a saheeh isnaad. This applies equally to both men and women.
We ask Allah to keep us safe and sound. End quote.